Considerations
by sekific
Summary: Well, not quite everything went wrong with the weekend, at least. (written for Yukimura's birthday.)


Yukimura's tolerance for blackouts wasn't exactly high at the best of times. And this, he rather thought, did not qualify as the best time to be without power; winter, in Sendai, four miles from the nearest town. Well. Four miles if you walked in a direct line, across a river, through farm fields and forests. If you used what passed for roads around here, it was probably hours away.

"You had to bring me out to the middle of nowhere," he griped, again. "The lines would have been fixed in five minutes if we were back in civilization."

Sanada, poking at the wood fire, rolled his eyes, but didn't argue.

Yukimura huffed, and stared out of the window. He would, if pushed, admit that Sanada couldn't possibly have predicted the earthquake that had presumably caused the power outage. Still, that meant that they were stuck, here, in this stupid little chalet in the middle of the woods without electricity until the taxi arrived on Monday morning.

Yukimura wasn't even sure the chalet's electricity had been installed as much more than an afterthought anyway. The place had that sort of rustic feel to it that implied that the owners expected visitors to spend most of their visit hunting or fishing or hiking manfully round the woods. People like that probably didn't care about little things like heating or charging their laptop batteries. Or cellphone reception, which of course there wasn't any of here either.

Sanada stood up and brushed his hands against each other, presumably signalling that whatever he'd been doing to the wood fire was now finished. "I'll go get some logs from that pile outside," he said, looking, to Yukimura's mind, far too happy with this whole turn of events.

Yukimura huddled on the sofa, under the blanket he'd dragged off one of the beds, and sighed.

"We never spend any time together any more," he remembered saying to Sanada, the month before, when they'd met up for a coffee. And now, he had his wish: three whole days ahead of time together.

And he was going to miss two deadlines as a result.

He heaved out a sigh, picked the oil lamp up off the table and went to investigate the kitchen.

There was a fair amount of food of various types in the cupboard, and the stove - thankfully - turned out to run on gas. There were even spare cylinders in the cupboard. He rolled up his sleeves, set the lamp down on the counter-top, and pulled out a few cans to peer at more closely. He directed a resentful glare for the useless rice cooker on the counter, then set about filling a pan with water. The stove had a fish grill, they had mackerel in the fridge - they could have those with some rice and there was miso paste too, so dinner might be a bit basic but it would be filling at least.

The electric light flickered on overhead for a moment, and then went out again. Yukimura waited a moment, hopeful, but the light stayed off.

"Sorry," said Sanada, a few minutes later from the kitchen doorway, a gust of freezing cold air accompanying him and making Yukimura shudder. He gestured vaguely behind him. "The generator works, but there's no fuel."

"Of course not."

"Tomorrow we can head into town, see if there's somewhere to buy more." Sanada brushed past Yukimura, and began to wash his hands, in fierce scouring motions that Yukimura found amusingly Sanada-like in their unconscious forcefulness. "It might take us a couple of hours, though. I hope you bought warm clothes."

"I hope so too," said Yukimura. "I wasn't planning for a blizzard."

"It's not snowing, Seiichi."

"Really? It feels like it should be." Yukimura waved a hand absently towards the main room. "Now get out, let me cook in peace."

Sanada obliged, and soon enough Yukimura could hear him humming in the other room, some sort of terrible old enka standard from the sound of it. Probably something he usually sang at karaoke with Renji, the only other person Yukimura knew who would unironically stand up and sing something that cringe-worthy in front of other people.

Yukimura snorted privately to himself. Sanada, the perpetual bachelor, with his penchant for dramatic ballads. Sanada had had girlfriends once or twice, but they were always quiet, shy girls who simply seemed to melt out of Sanada's life after a few months. Renji'd once said Sanada tended to pick exactly the wrong sort of girls for him; he needed women who were pushy and forgiving at the same time, and he dated girls who weren't either.

Not that Yukimura could claim he did much better.

They ate at the low table by the fire. Working in the unheated kitchen had made Yukimura's hands and feet feel icy. They didn't seem to warm up properly these days even in summer. Some vestige of his illness, he'd decided, leaving him with circulation that didn't quite work as well as it should.

"You'll scorch your slippers," Sanada said afterwards, scowling in concern as Yukimura absentmindedly shifted even closer to the flames.

Yukimura kicked off his slippers, and lifted one foot up and into the hearth, as close to the fire as he dared. "No I won't."

"Idiot." Sanada stretched out his own foot and shoved Yukimura's leg away from the fire firmly.

"I'm cold."

Sanada made a grumbling sound, and then heaved himself up to his feet. "Fine."

He vanished into the kitchen with the bowls; Yukimura wrapped the blanket around himself cocoon-like and stuck his foot back in the slipper grumpily. He clenched and unclenched his fists to try and coax some blood flow back into them. If it was this cold, he'd have to sleep in here. At least the sofa seemed adequate for sleeping; the bedrooms were up a staircase so steep and narrow it was practically a ladder, and dragging a futon down them would be a pain.

Sanada was making a hell of a clattering noise in the kitchen, and the noisy plumbing kicked into life as an indication that water was involved somehow. Maybe he was making tea, thought Yukimura, and stretched out his hands towards the fire. The room was starting to warm up, he thought, though it seemed to have taken forever. Maybe in another hour or so it'd be okay to remove the blanket.

After a good twenty minutes, Sanada re-emerged, carrying a wide, shallow basin of water. Steam rose off the surface, and Sanada carefully placed it in front of the fire.

"What are you doing?"

"For your feet," Sanada said. "Go on."

Yukimura blinked, and kicked off his left slipper again. It actually took a moment for the pain to register, and then he yanked his foot out with a yelp.

"Fucki-" he bit off the rest of the curse, because Sanada looked so appalled. "Pins and needles, not scalded."

Sanada knelt and grabbed Yukimura's foot, frowning. "You shouldn't… that is very cold."

"Yes."

"I thought you were being a drama queen." Sanada clicked his tongue, disapprovingly, and started briskly rubbing Yukimura's foot between his hands. "This is ridiculous. Is this why your place is always like a sauna?"

"Pretty much."

Sanada let go of Yukimura's foot after a couple of minutes of silent chafing, and he slid it back into the water. The water felt ridiculously hot, but at least the pins and needles sensation was diminishing. He shucked his other slipper, gritting his teeth in anticipation, and then Sanada grabbed that foot and started rubbing that too.

"Ah, you don't have to do that-"

"It's my fault you're here," said Sanada. "And I know you wanted to spend some time on work, too."

Yukimura tugged his foot away and plunked it into the water, managing not to wince as the pins and needles kicked in. "Well," he said, gritting his teeth a little, "I really do probably need to spend less time in front of a computer screen. And it's only two deadlines."

"You work too hard."

"So I'm told." Yukimura smiled, or at least bared his teeth. A lecture on work-life balance, from Sanada of all people, was not one of Yukimura's favourite ways to pass time.

Sanada took the hint. "Ah, well. I'm going to get in some more wood, I think, just in case."

Yukimura flexed his toes, under the water. The pin and needles sensation was starting to dissipate, and his left foot was starting to feel like it might even be warming up. He leant back against the edge of the sofa. "Good idea."

Two minutes later, the door slammed open again, and Sanada edged in with a huge armful of cut logs. He elbowed the door closed behind him and limped over to the hearth slowly.

"Sanada?"

"My knee." Sanada knelt, and lowered his arms so that the wood he was carrying toppled onto the existing pile next to the fire. He stood up again, looking distinctly wobbly on his feet. "It went from under me."

"Then for fuck's sake, don't keep using it." Yukimura said. If it had been his knee that had wobbled, it might not have been a big deal. But Sanada had fractured his knee quite badly in the second year of high school; it had healed adequately but the next major kendo tournament he'd competed in had led to another fracture that had required metal pins and plates to repair. "Sit down."

Sanada, for a miracle, obediently sat down on the sofa before unzipping his bulky coat. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Not your fault. How bad is it?"

Sanada rolled up his trouser leg, and poked at the side of his knee. "It'll swell up overnight; it'll be stiff as hell tomorrow."

"Well, if you were trying to make my cold feet feel inadequate as a problem, you've succeeded." Yukimura said, lightly. "Hand me the towel behind you? I think it's time for me to go for a walk."

Sanada handed him the towel, frowning. "It's too far, and it's getting dark. We can wait until morning."

"But hopefully it's not that far until my phone picks up some damned reception. I'll call the rental agency, and if I can't get through, a taxi or something." Yukimura finished drying his feet, and stood up. "If I leave it until tomorrow, my phone battery'll be dead."

"...you couldn't have thought of this plan while it was full daylight, of course."

Yukimura snorted. "Apparently not. Look, if I don't find a signal within ten or fifteen minutes, I'll turn around and come back. If I'm not back in an hour, you can assume I'm being eaten by wolves."

It was freezing cold outside, whatever Sanada said. Yukimura pulled his coat tighter around him, and tucked his head down into his scarf. Five minutes of grumpy walking in the rapidly dwindling light led him to a road junction, where his phone finally granted him a slender bar of phone access.

Their rental agent was very apologetic, and very polite. And also, apparently, without power of her own, and without any suggestions for how to resolve the problem at this time of night. There was no way for her to get any fuel for the generator before the morning. As the agent continued to apologise, Yukimura toyed with the idea of asking to be moved to another place, or of just asking to be taken to the nearest shinkansen station so they could give up on Sendai entirely.

Except… before the power had gone, Sanada had been so happy about having found this place. The scenery was glorious around here, even at the tail-end of winter, with dramatic mountains and cascading rivers and air that was so clear that you could see for miles. Perhaps they could go one night without power, with the fire to keep them warm, and then once they had fuel for the generator they could go back to enjoying their weekend as planned. That way he wouldn't need to feel like he'd made Sanada take precious time off work and travel halfway up the spine of Japan for a completely wasted trip.

Yukimura sighed, and assured the agent that it was fine, he'd see her in the morning.

By the time he got back to the cabin, he was so cold that stepping into the warmth of the inside was like entering a furnace. He blinked in surprise, and shut the door firmly behind him.

Sanada, despite his knee, had clearly been busy. The furniture had all been pushed back to the edges of the room, and two futons had been laid out side by side near the fire. He must have dragged them down from upstairs. Yukimura rolled his eyes, and bent down to unlace his boots.

"You're back already," Sanada said, from the kitchen doorway, already clad in a yukata. "I'm making tea."

"Aren't you supposed to rest your damned knee, you idiot?"

Sanada ducked back into the kitchen without even the faintest hint of apology..

Despite his annoyance, warm tea did make Yukimura feel a little less grumpy at the world, and there was something rather cosy and nostalgic about sitting on a futon, lit by firelight. It felt a little like being in a nice onsen somewhere.

Yukimura couldn't help but think all this soft light and warmth felt romantic. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it occurred to him; for most of his life Yukimura'd thought that he and Sanada might be heading for something in that direction, but the horrified reaction he'd gotten the year before when he had finally let sly flirtation cross into outright proposition had swiftly corrected that line of thought.

Still, he could admire, covertly. And Sanada was still worth looking at, even with his leg propped out awkwardly in front of him and his yukata cinched in so tightly that it was a miracle it wasn't cutting into his neck. He might not be an athlete any more, but he was still imposing physically, all broad shoulders and muscular arms. The police force probably sent him out to block roads all by himself, thought Yukimura. Cars would just bounce off all that muscle.

With the tea consumed, Yukimura went to rummage in the kitchen cupboards in search of snacks. There was nothing that could be eaten uncooked - which felt like too much effort right now - but Yukimura did find a half-full bottle of sake tucked away at the back. He took it triumphantly into the main room, and they let it warm in front of the fire.

Yukimura didn't like getting drunk, really, but tipsy was perfectly acceptable, and it was gratifying to watch the tense set of Sanada's shoulders dissolve into relaxation. And, while it was never exactly hard to talk to Sanada, it felt easier when Sanada was less guarded.

One meandering story about Sanada's superiors later, Yukimura rolled his shoulders. They crunched painfully.

"Too much hunching over your keyboard," said Sanada.

"Yes, thank you, doctor, I know I have terrible posture." Yukimura stretched out his arms. Probably he wasn't helping things by slumping back against the sofa next to the futon the way he was, but it was comfortable. "I'm sure I'll feel better after a few days away from it all, don't worry."

"I do hope so."

There was something very sincere and sweet in the way Sanada said it, and Yukimura glanced over in surprise.

"I worry about you, you know," Sanada said. "You work too hard."

"Says the man who was promoted from cadet faster than anyone else in a decade, or was your mother exaggerating?"

"At least I stop working sometimes. Do you ever stop thinking about articles?"

"...not often." Yukimura had already been trying to work out how to turn this weekend's calamity into an amusing piece, maybe to submit to a lifestyle or holiday magazine. "It's a good habit, seriously, it keeps me paid."

"It can't possibly pay enough." Sanada fumbled underneath the top of the futon he was sitting on, as if trying to find something. "So, I bought you a present."

Yukimura blinked, and sat up straight. "You did?"

"Hopefully you'll like this more than your birthday present. Actually, I suppose it's several gifts, not one."

"I did like that book," Yukimura protested, craning his neck to see what Sanada was retrieving. "I was just surprised, that's all."

"I think you'll prefer this." Sanada handed over the slim packages, and smiled slyly.

The gift turned out to be a sketchbook and a box of pastels; Yukimura's mouth opened in a silent o of surprise.

"You do still like art?"

"Well, in theory-" Yukimura opened the sketchbook, and smoothed his hand across the paper thoughtfully. "It's been ages, though."

Sanada gestured towards the window. "I thought, it's pretty up here, maybe you could do some landscapes."

"With pastels?"

"Is that wrong?"

Yukimura smiled. "No, not exactly." He closed the sketchbook, carefully. "Thank you, that's… very thoughtful."

And really, Yukimura was surprised at himself for not even having thought of bringing a pad and pencils at the very least. Maybe he really was working too hard.

"Pastels are better for portraits, really," he said, on a whim, just to see if Sanada would pull the same face he'd always pulled when Yukimura had asked him to be a model in high school.

To his faint surprise, Sanada shrugged. "I'd say no, but I'm sure you'd talk me into it before the day was out."

Yukimura tapped his fingers on the sketchbook, thinking. "...alright, now I'm worried. Is this an intervention?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've taken me away from the city, taken away my laptop, and now this. Art therapy." Yukimura tipped his head to one side. "I'm not that obsessive about work, am I?"

Sanada stared at him for a moment, and then laughed, a deep resonant laugh. Yukimura hadn't heard Sanada laugh like that in years. "No intervention, honestly," Sanada said, chuckling. "I did want you to not be working all weekend, but I swear, I didn't arrange an earthquake."

"Hmmf." Yukimura eyed Sanada with mock suspicion, and then smiled back. "I suppose that's alright, then."

Sanada refilled both cups. "It's been forever since it was just us two, hasn't it? In private, I mean."

"I suppose so." Yukimura thought back; usually they met up with friends, or family, or met up at cafes or restaurants; busy places full of other people. "Are you scolding me for not inviting you over more?"

"I wondered if you were avoiding being alone with me, after what you said that time."

Well, damn. Yukimura wasn't really sure how to respond to that, especially since it was true. Sanada's expression was distant; looking through Yukimura. "I… maybe I was, a little."

Sanada's eyes snapped into focus. "Oh."

"It's not important, though. I was just a bit embarrassed, I suppose."

"Not as embarrassed as I was." Sanada scowled. "Your sister was in the next room, Seiichi."

Yukimura blinked in surprise. "She was asleep, it wasn't like-"

"Your apartment has ridiculously thin walls." Sanada sniffed, and drained his cup. "And the next time I saw you, you had a girlfriend."

"What? Who?"

"That… model, with the fluffy hair?"

"Oh, her." Yukimura vividly remembered that girlfriend; he'd been there to interview the photographer and he'd gotten talking to her - vivacious, pretty, cheerful, and a good distraction from dwelling on how much he might have ruined his friendship with Sanada. Unfortunately, a couple of months later Yukimura'd found a small stash of illegal drugs in her purse, and that had been that. "And if I hadn't had a girlfriend, what then?"

"Then maybe I'd have tried taking you away somewhere, up in the wilderness, so we could spend time together in private and see how things went." Sanada sighed, and then he ran the back of his hand across his brow. "This weekend has gone wrong in so many ways already. Tell me I haven't made things worse?"

Yukimura put his cup down, carefully, by the side of the futon, and inspected Sanada with ostentatious thoughtfulness. Sanada's yukata had loosened a little, no longer so tight it looked like it might choke him, but still fully respectable. His damaged leg was stretched out in front of him, the other crossed demurely across it at the knee, both hands wrapped around the empty sake cup. His hair was a little rumpled, as if he'd run his hand through it at some point when Yukimura wasn't looking. And his face… his eyes were dark, and hopeful, and the reflections of the fire danced in them.

"Not worse," Yukimura said, eventually, and he put his hand over Sanada's.

"I'm… I'm an awful boyfriend," Sanada said, turning his face back towards the fire, his voice level and light-hearted. "I keep being told I'm neglectful."

Yukimura tightened his grip; Sanada's hands were shaking. "Neglect me and I'll kill you."

"I'd deserve it."

"Kiss me?"

Sanada turned his head immediately, and Yukimura leant in to press their mouths together, a clumsy and uncertain kiss that nevertheless sent a surge of dizziness through Yukimura's stomach.

"Hn," he said, pulling back. "So pushy, our first kiss and you've already got me on your futon."

"Where I hope to keep you," said Sanada, his voice now betraying the shakiness of his hands, despite his smile.

"That can be arranged," Yukimura said, and he lifted one hand to prod the end of Sanada's nose. "Though you might want to remember we have the agent coming by tomorrow."

Sanada pursed his lips, then twisted suddenly, grabbing Yukimura by the waist and hauling him sideways onto Sanada's lap, making Yukimura yelp in amused surprise. "If she gets an eyeful, it's her own fault."

"Who are you and what have you done with Sanada Genichirou?"

Sanada kissed him again, then, with rather more confidence than their first attempt. Yukimura, mindful of Sanada's knee, tried to keep as much of his weight off Sanada's lap as he could, despite Sanada's repeated efforts to pull him closer. In the end, they toppled sideways together, Sanada's hands tangled in Yukimura's hair and Yukimura's hands fumbling at Sanada's waist tie.

"Condoms," he muttered, as Sanada's mouth went to his neck, sending shivers down his spine. "Nnn, where are they?"

Sanada stopped, abruptly, and pulled back, looking astonished. "I - I didn't bring any."

"...you didn't?"

"I - it didn't occur to me."

Yukimura tried to keep a stern, disapproving face, but it was a futile effort, and he began giggling helplessly.

"-and that's funny?"

"I'm sorry, but, oh, my dearest Sanada, never change." Yukimura kissed Sanada on the cheek, fondly. "You whisk me away to seduce me, and-" but Sanada's face was so crestfallen, and his hands had clenched into fists of embarrassment, and maybe Yukimura could postpone this line of teasing until later under the circumstances. "I'm sure we can think of alternatives, however."

Sanada glanced downwards, and then met Yukimura's eyes. "Show me some."

Yukimura grinned. "Oh, believe me, I'll show you all of them."

It had been an awful start to the weekend, and Yukimura was still going to miss two deadlines. But really, under the circumstances? He couldn't care less.


End file.
